The Witcher 3's Combat - A Poll

[Elfotografoalocado]

It has some brilliant elements, and some bad elements. It generally feels good, but the animations could be a lot better. The signs are great but poorly balanced since they take forever to recharge. Same with the bombs. The enemies can be quite spongey too.

 

[Bunga]

To the people who are comparing TW3 combat to the souls series combat, would you actually want a 100+ hour RPG with souls combat the whole way through? I hazard you would not. There's a lot to be said for more relaxing combat in games, i.e. where it isn't extremely punishing on every little mistake, especially in a game of TW3s length. Also, the combat isn't the focus of the game like it is with souls. It's about the world, the story, quests, characters over and above the combat.

 

[Charpunk]

As much as I adore this game, the combat was by far the worst part for me. It worked but it was just flat out bad at times.

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

I've picked it up again to play these last couple of weeks and installed a shit ton of mods to make it more straight forward.
Essentially I only use dodge and fast attacks to make quick work of enemies, and a lot of sign use.
There's a mod that auto-applies Oils to the swords and it is amazing.
It's been useful to learn to parry, since I want to go W3 > Fallen Order > Sekiro next on my backlog.

 

[Hybrid Rainbow]

Combat was terrible and was a chore the majority of the time. I think the only time I actually enjoyed it was on Skellige, but other than that, bleh.

 

[zombiejames]

To the people who are comparing TW3 combat to the souls series combat, would you actually want a 100+ hour RPG with souls combat the whole way through? I hazard you would not.

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Yes. I've played well over 100 hours of Bloodborne (and about ~60 or so in DS3) this generation and the combat is a huge reason why. I wish more games would have the same fluidity and responsiveness.

 

[Richietto]

Just okay.

 

[Sabercrusader]

It's by no means bad. There were way too many comparisons to Dark Souls back on release.

I voted it was good. Not amazing by any stretch, but I love the fact that the Witcher game's combat is centered around investigation and preparing for your fight beforehand, at least when it comes to monsters.

 

[Chief Malik]

It got me to stop playing the game.

 

[KiKaL]

I am just now playing it and maybe 10 hours in. I voted serviceable. I will say it's waaay better then I expected. The way people talk about it makes it seem like it would be so much worse. I put serviceable because it's not a game I would play just for the combat but the combat is still entertaining enough. I am not upset when there is combat.

 

[Deleted member 13370]

My brutally hoest verdict is that there is nothing The Witcher 3 does with it's combat, enemy behaviors or encounter designs that wasn't done better by Ocarina of Time, released 17 years before TW3.

(I still love the game immensely, but thanks to literally every other thing in the game except the combat)

 

[EccoCid]

To the people who are comparing TW3 combat to the souls series combat, would you actually want a 100+ hour RPG with souls combat the whole way through? I hazard you would not. There's a lot to be said for more relaxing combat in games, i.e. where it isn't extremely punishing on every little mistake, especially in a game of TW3s length. Also, the combat isn't the focus of the game like it is with souls. It's about the world, the story, quests, characters over and above the combat.

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Well it doesnt have to be as difficult as souls games. You can still have that Souls combat but keep enemy damage lower. I dunno at least it would feel responsive.

 

[WeAreStarStuff]

I always enjoyed the combat, especially mixing up sword play with the signs. I did not realize people had a problem with the combat until I started noticing threads about it.

 

[Deleted member 4869]

It's terrible. Slow and clunky. Felt like I was controlling a log with legs.

 

[Dyno]

It's good. Especially when you consider the alternatives. Elder scrolls combat is straight trash, Dragon Age is ok but the last two games themselves were awful. Witcher seems to be the western RPG that's actually reasonable at more than one aspect.

 

[Falchion]

Jumping back into it after not touching it for a few years definitely made the combat more jarring. I still think it's serviceable but it's not a ton of fun.

 

[Rosebud]

I had so much fun with it and can't understand why it's so hated.

 

[Azzanadra]

To the people who are comparing TW3 combat to the souls series combat, would you actually want a 100+ hour RPG with souls combat the whole way through? I hazard you would not. There's a lot to be said for more relaxing combat in games, i.e. where it isn't extremely punishing on every little mistake, especially in a game of TW3s length. Also, the combat isn't the focus of the game like it is with souls. It's about the world, the story, quests, characters over and above the combat.

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I have something like 800 hours across all the Souls games, so I'm going to say yes. Plus, Souls is also hard because of the death penalties whereas in The Witcher 3 the game autosaves frequently and you can save anytime outside of combat.

 

[SmittyWerbenManJensen]

Poor.

I absolutely hate it. It feels awful and clunky, especially with all of the floaty jumps that are entirely unnecessary. The game is a slog to play.

 

[Azzanadra]

The change in control scheme and movement in-and-out of combat is so ill-advised in a game like this, it actively fucks you over when the terrain your fighting on requires you to jump.

 

[HBK]

The way I see it, ~30% thought it was good, ~28% thought it was bad, and the rest just dealt with it.

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That's exactly how I read it.

Serviceable usually means "meh, didn't prevent me from finishing the game".

Edit: If anything, I'll never understand people saying "it's at least better than Skyrim".

Skyrim has poor combat no questions asked, but TW3 is just plain bad.

There's nothing good to be said about TW3's combat system. It's the epitome of what shouldn't be done in a combat system (I won't list the flaws again, everyone knows them). At least Skyrim has a ton of freedom and can rely on the clunky emergent nature of BethSoft games to help it raising above the "bad" bar by allowing insanely OP builds and/or insanely hilarious ones. It also does some of the basics right, with decent levels of reactivity for example as far as I can remember.

Sometimes it really feels like people have little idea what they're talking about when discussing such things. I mean it's the internet and all, but still.

 

[Fushichou187]

Serviceable for me. I played the game on Death March which thankfully made me focus way more on signs, potions, and bombs (which I enjoyed) rather than running around swinging my sword; the sword was just the finisher in most cases. The times I did just use my sword it was fine but also felt basic and undercooked. I also wasn't a fan of the timing window of a some of the more advanced sword skills.

But like I said, Death March forces you to take encounters slow and cautiously, with more focus on signs, potions, and bombs. That loop was actually enjoyable for me.

 

[Fredrik]

It was never the reason why I played the game but it was serviceable, sometimes fun but it mostly felt like something put there to occupy me while pushing the story forward. It didn't bother me, the game was amazing, still is.

 

[Dussck]

It got me to stop playing the game.

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Not me, I liked the stories so I put it to the easiest difficulty and just went from cutscene to cutscene :)

But yea, not only the combat, but the whole movement of the character (I swear it was taking me 2 minutes to open a chest, just because walking up to it and make the prompt appear was such a delicate operation) and the whole slow menu and inventory system, ugh..

 

[bloodgate]

I found the combat to be between serviceable at times and good at other times, so I voted for good. It seemed to average somewhere in the middle of the two for me. I enjoyed most of my time with the combat, where the moments where I had to put up with it were few and far between.

I found the combat to be a vast improvement from the first entry of the series, and still a marked improvement from the second entry. I couldn't finish either of those games due to the mechanics, even though I loved the story. Especially in the first game. I should go back and finish it sometime, heh.

 

[Tunichtgut]

It got me to stop playing the game, and i've tried to come back to it many times, but i just couldn't.

 

[Indy in the Fridge]

I enjoyed the melee combat mixed with using the signs. Crossbow was bad though.

 

[AbsoluteZ3R0]

The combat was serviceable and pretty good in some of the dlc boss fights. However, the combat is still better than most of wrpg (elder scroll, outer world, dragon age 2/inquisition, greedfall etc.)

 

[Son of Sparda]

It's poor but that didn't stop me from enjoying the game.

 

[Torpedo Vegas]

It was good, and fun to watch once you got signs, bombs, and things going.

 

[PunishedPrince]

I don't understand why some people want souls combat shoved in everything. A big reason why souls combat is good is because of the enemy design and the encounter design and how it meshes with the world. I don't see it being the best route to take when it comes to big 50+hours open world RPGs.

Also, I find souls combat to be a bit mentally exhausting and I don't want to have to deal with that in some massive rpg. Sure you can turn down the damage but then it quickly gets boring because of how simplistic the combat is.

 

[Jamesways]

Stops me from enjoying it. No weight to the weapons, just slash through things, just can't enjoy it.

People say Souls games ruin this kind of combat. For Honor took it a step further for me, I don't enjoy Souls' combat much after playing FH every day for the past 3 years.

 

[Nephilim]

It's good and it's fun. Never understood what's bad about it.

 

[BadWeddingSpeech]

I thought it was decent. Above servicable, but not "awesome."

 

[fr0st]

It got me to stop playing the game.

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This coupled with the horrible frame rate on consoles made me quit so fast.

 

[Horp]

Amazing: From stuff
Good: new GoW
Servicable: BotW
Poor: Witcher 2/3
Awful: Elder Scrolls

 

[AlanMoore]

An improvement over 2, but generally something I didn't enjoy about W3.

 

[bell_hooks]

Game has fantastic combat.

Spoiler

As long as you install mod that replaces every encounter with gwent round

 

[FantaSoda]

It would be better than servicable if I wasn't fighting the lock-on controls half the time in combat.

 

[Mike Rambo]

Okay so I've never played the first two but I remember hearing that part 2 was "rewarding" Heck, I think that was from an episode of Weekend Confirmed.

Is that not true? I was always curious why Witcher 3 felt so odd and stiff, is that not just ported from the previous two?

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The second's combat was like a prototype for the third, but it's pretty rough around the edges

 

[Slayven]

I only played 2 hours of the game because of it

 

[ClarkusDarkus]

Poor, Pressed a couple of buttons and the man was flip flopping all over the joint.

 

[Prolepro]

I like it better than most (voted "good") and it continues to astound me when I see people say it's garbage.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

I think it's the worst part of a great game. I really wasn't having fun with it, and by the time I made it to the first Werewolf boss I was so sick of it I just ramped it down to Easy and never looked back.

 

[JeRzYzFyNeSt]

i thought it was good, i had no problems with it, then again im not a picky gamer where everything has to be A1 graphics included.. as long as it works im happy

 

[Sir_Bumble_Bee]

Ngl the combat was the reason I stopped my playthrough. I put in ~10 hours but the poor combat was just too much for me. Dragon Quest XI came at around that time so I dropped TW3 and never once considered picking it back up.

I'm still curious to try Cyberpunk. Bethesda taught us all that a good way to work around shitty rpg battle systems is to make an fps lol

 

[Okapi]

The Souls games are hard in part because the precise combat system allowed them to be without feeling unfair. The Witcher 3's combat is also clearly inspired by it. I agree that it isn't exactly the focus of the game and it works OK for the most part but Witcher 3 with Souls gameplay would be damn near perfect imo.

 

[lorddarkflare]

Worst part of an amazing game, but still fine.

 

[Decado]

Combat in The Witcher 3only reaches serviceable/pretty good levels with a combat overhaul mod. Vanilla is pretty bad.

 

[the_wart]

The core swordplay is servicible at best, but if you take advantage of all the tools the game makes available to you combat is pretty decent.

The combat has a particular rhythm to it, and once you're attuned to that rhythm the game plays fine. Problem is, the animations does a terrible job of conveying that rhythm, so you just have to infer when an input will go through vs when animation has priority. From software doesn't have this problem because they use very clear, expressive animations.